The ‘underrated’ trait that Scottie Scheffler, Tiger Woods share in common

Like perfect and breathtaking, Tiger-like is an adjective that should be used sparingly.

But when assessing Scottie Scheffler’s 2024, it’s hard not to draw Tiger Woods comparisons, and not only because Woods was looking on approvingly at the Hero World Challenge Sunday when Scheffler joined Woods and Vijay Singh as the only players in the modern era to have won nine times — nine times, Mrs. Bueller! — in a season.

It’s the completeness of Scheffler’s game that most evokes peak Woods, paired with Scheffler’s superhuman ability to finds ways to win even when he’s not at his sharpest. On Sunday evening, after his breezy six-shot win in the Bahamas, Scheffler was asked if he was pleased with his final-round nine-under 63. His answer suggested that he was not, or at least not entirely.

“Yeah,” he began. “I mean, you know, I’m very thankful to be sitting here with the trophy. My goal or whatever going into today was to hopefully win the tournament and I felt like I played good enough golf to win and was able to get it done.”

Good enough, LOL. This on a day when no other player managed better than a 67.  

Scheffler needed to beat “only” 19 other players at Albany, but his stat line indicated that, if asked of him, he likely would have beat 119. Or, for that matter, 1,119.

Scheffler led the field in no less than 11 statistical categories, including SG: Tee-to-Green (+3.23), SG: Approach (+1.69), 3 Putt Avoidance (0) and Scoring Average (67.8). Little of that dominance should have come as a surprise given it was merely a continuation of what Scheffler has been doing all season. In 2024, he leads the Tour in SG: Tee to Green (+2.401), SG: Approach the Green (1.277), Scoring Average (68.645) and Birdie Average (4.88).       

“A pretty fun year,” is how Scheffler, in his typically unassuming style, summed up his $63 million season Sunday. Makes you wonder what would qualify as a very fun year. To recap, Scheffler won his second green jacket, defended his Players title, won five other signature events, including the Tour Championship, which gave him FedEx Cup honors. He also won a gold medal in Paris and, oh yeah, became a father.   

Scheffler is making the game — and winning — look easy. He will tell you neither of these things is true. In fact, he said as much Sunday. “I would say that golf very rarely feels easy,” he said. “I see a lot of the players out here when they have great rounds, it seems so easy and then you get done and you talk to them about it and it’s never really that easy.”

News

That’s especially true when expectations are high, as they have been for Scheffler all year long. Winning may beget winning, but it also begets the assumption from others that more wins are coming. Indeed, it’s one thing to prevail when you’re cruising under the radar and shoot a cool Sunday 64 to sneak up on the pack and nab, say, your third-career title. It’s quite another when you’re the prohibitive betting favorite, facing the media after every round and expected to be in the hunt. That’s a different kind of pressure that few players have had to face.

Ask Justin Thomas, who early last week said of Scheffler: “I think it’s just underrated how well he’s playing for [people] expecting [him] to play that well. I don’t think people understand how difficult it is to win when you’re expected to win or when every single person expects you to play well, and you expect you to play well and then to still play well. I think expectations are something, it’s very, very hard to manage. It truly is just as much of a talent as being able to control your distance with your wedges or flight a driver or hit it far — whatever it is, is being able to stay present, stay in the moment.”

Thomas said that among his Tour brethern no one is better at executing these mental gymnastics than Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, who won two majors this year.    

“It’s very hard to explain, but it’s so hard to do sometimes,” continued Thomas, who himself knows a little something about winning in bunches (in 2017 he won five times, including a major). “It’s sometimes even harder when you’re playing that well because it’s easy to think like, well, if I keep playing like this, I’m going to win this tournament, I’m going to win the next tournament and the next one versus truly — I mean, Tiger always talked about it, every shot’s the most important shot you’ve ever hit in your life, and after you hit that one, you go do it again and next thing you know you’re like oh, I won again. That’s a hard thing to do. To me, that’s been the most impressive thing from Scottie.”

No argument here.